In 11 months and counting, the first installation of The Hobbit will hit the theatres. I was only a wee teenager when The Fellowship of the Ring was released in 2001, but I remember going to the cinema right around Christmas time to see Tolkien’s epic rendered on the silver screen. A desperate fan of the books, I remember my body shaking with anticipation — over those three years, I am not sure whether I was more excited about the Christmas season or the new Lord of the Rings movie.
It does seem a little bit early to be getting excited. December 2012 is a long way away — and thus so is The Hobbit. If you’ve gone to the theatres recently, however, you may have cause to celebrate. The official trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has been released!
The novel has been split in two, and each half will get its own film: with the first movie titled An Unexpexted Journey and the second There and Back Again. Peter Jackson is back to direct the novel that set the stage for The Lord of the Rings. Many of the cast members and crew from the beloved trilogy are also returning.
Can anyone else still hear the music that came to represent the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Howard Shore won an Oscar for his composition, so it should resonate for a few of us. The Hobbit trailer opens with this same score, in the same place (the Shire), with Bilbo and Frodo. Ian McKellan is back to play Gandalf, and he hasn’t aged a day under all of that hair. Andy Serkis will return to resume the role of Gollum, which was spectacular in the Lord of the Rings trilogy — no one else could imbue the word “precious” with so much creepiness. Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett will be back as Elrond and Galadriel, respectively. Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom are also slated to be in the film, although their roles cannot be substantial considering their Lord of the Rings characters have no major roles in the story of The Hobbit. The beautiful landscapes of New Zealand will once again represent Tolkien’s middle earth.
With the same cast, same crew, same setting, and the same music, the new trailer for The Hobbit suggests it might just be a slightly modified retelling of the Lord of the Rings. There is so much that is the same. And to be frank, this worries me. These are two very different tales.
J.R.R Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in 1937, long before he began to pen the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit, although it does come first chronologically, is not a prequel. And unlike The Lord of the Rings, it is a book for children. The stakes are high, to be sure. Thorin Oakenshield is quite serious and Smaug, the dragon, is no pushover, but the fate of the world, of the free people of middle earth, is not at stake. Bilbo Baggins goes on an adventure with 13 dwarves and a wizard. Trolls, caves, riddles in the dark and dragons are all on the agenda. At the end of the day, though, this is a book for kids: a fairy tale with many adventures, fantastical creatures, a lot of magic, and the bravery and humour of dwarves. The book is light-hearted, or at least as light-hearted a story as Tolkien could author.
The darkness that weighs heavily on the narrative of The Lord of the Rings is not present in The Hobbit. They are two very different stories. Considering the recent trailer, I am not sure that Jackson intends to film them this way. The trilogy — written last, but filmed first — casts a long and dark shadow. This may not be a good thing for The Hobbit.
Either way, Middle Earth is back! Martin Freeman will be playing a young Bilbo, and there is no one more ideal for this role (he was born to play Bilbo). Dwarves will be parading across the screen with excessive amounts of glorious facial hair and the one ring slips into Bilbo’s pocket, its power and dark history a mystery to all.
Even if the movies end up as more background story to The Lord of the Rings and less an exciting tale able to stand on its own, next December can’t come soon enough.
